A reminder that L.A. is a city without borders: Editorial

It was reported last weekend that about four-fifths of Los Angeles police and fire department employees, and more than two-thirds of L.A. city workers generally, live elsewhere. This is an eye-opener, as it was every other time it was reported over the past 20 years.

The facts are old, but their significance may be different now, highlighting the need for Southern California cities to think beyond their borders, an effort L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti has been trying to lead in his first year in office.

The statistics spark less controversy than they used to. In 1994, the American Civil Liberties Union said the fact 83.1 percent of L.A. Police Department officers lived outside the city supported claims the LAPD was “an army of occupation, comprised mostly of white suburbanites, whose members have little stake in Los Angeles.” In 2001, after a Daily News analysis showed 80 percent of LAPD officers live outside L.A., some told the paper they didn’t want to live near the crime they’re hired to clean up.

After the Los Angeles Times updated the numbers last week, analyzing city payroll data to find 79 percent of LAPD employees and 84 percent of LAFD employees live outside the city, speculation about the causes focused on housing prices and lost confidence in the public schools. Important topics.

But there may be broader meaning. It’s a reminder that many people in Southern California — public as well as private employees — live in one city and work in another.

The policies City Hall enacts with the intention to better serve the residents of Los Angeles also affect the lives of people who live outside the city but go to work in L.A. (or visit for any reason). And, of course, the reverse is also true, that the laws and quality of life of other cities affect people who work there but reside in L.A. Burbank and L.A. residents drive each other’s streets.

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As Garcetti said in March to an audience of 200 leaders from throughout L.A. County: “The problems we are all attempting to solve don’t pay attention to borders.” Garcetti said he wants to be “a better mayor for the entire region,” and try to change L.A.’s image as the region’s “800-pound gorilla.”

Other signs of Garcetti’s effort include his promise to work with Long Beach officials on port issues, and his role as a speaker at Long Beach Mayor-elect Robert Garcia’s election-night party; his vow to work with the county’s other cities to raise funds for transportation; and his hosting of working sessions, last August and in March, with mayors from many of the county’s 87 other cities.

This marks a change in tone from the Antonio Villaraigosa years, and a challenge for Garcetti. The L.A. mayor’s first responsibility is to the residents of his city. There’s a fine line between trying to lead regional cooperation and being an 800-pound gorilla who escaped his cage, or stirring up millions of new critics. (San Gabriel Valley residents are monitoring Garcetti’s and his Metro board appointees’ support for a Gold Line light-rail extension from Azusa to Claremont.)

But it’s a challenge worth taking. As the data on where L.A. city employees live shows, Southern Californians are in this together.